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8 Weeks! Hills!

We are headed back to Rochester for the weekend and I’m excited to do a few runs on flat paths and trails! I’m also looking forward to a long run with Laura and spectating Jeff’s cross country race with Victoria. The rest of my time will be spent hanging out with non-running friends.

I did my longest postpartum run, 9 miles, last Sunday. I did the whole run on hilly trails and I was pretty sore the next day. I also did a mini-workout of 6 x strides (working up to 95% effort) on Tuesday. The strides didn’t feel bad at all during the workout or later that night, but my hamstrings were crazy sore the next day. I think it’s because I did all the strides on hilly streets, going both uphill and downhill. My body is still adjusting to this hilly neighborhood! (I realize I overuse the word hill, but I grew up in pancake flat land, and have almost always trained in flat places so this is really new and difficult for me!)

The final item to note about my comeback is that I’m starting more strength exercises. I’m doing something strength related every day. This may be as simple as a set of planks. Or a few sets of pushups. Or it might include 6 different hip/butt/leg exercises. (Not up to the Dirty Dozen yet!) All of my strength work so far is either body weight or baby weight (holding Wells who is somewhere around 13lbs).

I have to be honest, I’m VERY weak right now. I’m usually a pushup queen and I had to start with 2 sets of 10. (Ok, I actually started with 20 wall pushups, then the next time moved on to the regular kind.) When I asked Currie how many pushups she thought I could do, she said “3!” Glad I beat her estimate! My balance and stabilizing muscles are really off as well. I tried standing on one foot and reaching for an object on the ground and I was wobbling all over the place. Also, I could only hold side plank (lifted, not on elbows) for 5 seconds per side without toppling over the first time. As I said in my last post, it will all come back, step by step.

happy 8 weeks! oh hills, yea they can kick my butt too mostly because when i grew up running there weren’t many hills. but over the years i’ve lived near some pretty steep hills so i’ve gradually become less sucky at hills. lol. take care of that hamstring!! ugh, mine tend to get cranky at me too. 😛
oh planks…yea, those ones are one of my top picks for core exercises…so many variations to keep them fresh!